Issac Samuel Villegas, a Mennonite pastor from North Carolina and author of Migrant God: A Christian Vision for Immigrant Justice, describes his work with migrants seeking safety and a better life in the United States. He does not assess the political, legal, and social challenges of international migration. Rather, he tells stories about his involvement in caring for persons who are on the move in spite of legal and political barriers imposed by sovereign governments. He provides moving accounts of human suffering involved in the dangerous and difficult journeys of moving across territorial borders.

In the first chapter of Villegas’ book, “Death in the Desert,” Villegas tells the story of people who have sought to enter the US through the harsh Arizona desert in order to evade detection. The result of such efforts, however, is often lethal. Similarly, African and Middle Eastern migrants who have sought to enter Europe by trying to reach Greece or Italy on unsafe boats frequently fail to reach safety because of storms or mechanical troubles. Who is responsible for such deaths? The governments that fail to increase legal immigration? The smugglers who provide inadequate resources and guidance? The migrants themselves for risking dangerous journeys?

Villegas argues that the Christian faith calls on believers to demonstrate love and concern to migrants. He declares that “to love our neighbors with the love of Jesus is at the heart of Christian ethics.” To illustrate his concern for the plight of migrants he spends a week in Tijuana’s House of Migrants (La Case del Migrante), a Roman Catholic ministry that provides temporary housing, food, and supplies to migrants. He also demonstrates such concern by using his local church as sanctuary for a woman threatened with deportation.

Villegas considers the existing immigration regime unjust. He writes: “We’ve fashioned communities on a global scale that are inhospitable to people who’ve had to leave their homeland. Nation-states develop immigration policies and implement enforcement strategies as fortifications against people trying to survive.” As a result, he seeks the transformation of existing rules and practices by participating in advocacy initiatives and confronting government officials responsible for migration policies. He is especially critical of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents who seek to identify and deport undocumented migrants.

Villegas acknowledges the realities of the nation-state and citizenship. He writes: “We’re told to care about our own people, our fellow citizens, the rightful members of our country. As for those who happen to live on the wrong side of the citizen-or-alien divide? Well, they’re deportable from our sphere of concern, banished from the reach of our sense of mutual responsibility. If our laws determine that our society does not belong to them, then we can absolve ourselves of our obligations as their neighbors. Because…the bonds of citizenship trump the biblical call to love our neighbors.” No, citizenship does not trump the biblical demand of love. Both love and migration rules matter. Thus, contrary to Villegas’ claims, when migrants evade government rules, they should not rely on the compassion and love of others to over-ride their past unlawful behavior.

In the contemporary global system, enshrined in the UN Charter, member states are juridically equal, politically independent, and sovereign within their territorial borders. Some Christians may regard the existing global order as an impediment to the universality of God’s love and an affront to impartial justice. But until a better, more just global order is established, believers should seek to advance the welfare of all of God’s children worldwide–whether they are migrating or whether they are stuck in inhospitable societies and unable to leave their unsafe, poor homelands. Although the needs of migrants matter, those paying smugglers thousands of dollars to evade border controls are not the most vulnerable people in the world. Rather, the greatest human suffering is in war-torn countries like Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen, repressive systems like Afghanistan, Cuba, North Korea, and Syria, and crime-infested countries like Haiti.

Under international law, all persons have a right to a nationality. Additionally, they have a basic right to leave their own country, but they do not possess a right to immigrate. The decision of whether or not a state allows entry is up to the receiving state. Most international migration follows the rules and regulations of states. Typically, persons who seek to move permanently to a new country do so by requesting a visa from the receiving state’s governmental authorities. The problems that Villegas addresses arise only when people seek to evade border controls. Since the supply of immigrant visas in prosperous countries is limited, migrants, encouraged by smugglers, may be tempted to enter a country covertly. While the church should always be compassionate and caring towards all persons, only the state is empowered to resolve the status of irregular migrants.

It is important to stress that until recently, the United States has been the most welcoming nation in the world to migrants. More than 3 million refugees have been resettled since the early 1950s, and every year more than one million immigrants become legal permanent residents. Indeed, the foreign-born population in the United States is now greater than 46 million persons, or about 14 percent of the country’s total population.

While the book’s subtitle describes “a Christian vision of immigrant justice,” there is no analysis of what such justice entails. Given his humanitarian work in caring for persons seeking to cross territorial borders, the term presumably refers to giving aid to migrants by supporting their needs and claims to enter a new country. But justice, as Reinhold Niebuhr long ago noted, is not simply about love; rather, it is about the right allocation of responsibilities and giving every person his or her due. Immigrant justice is challenging because it must be rooted in impartiality and must necessarily involve weighing the relative merits and claims of legal and illegal migrants, citizens and noncitizens, refugees and migrants. We may not like territorial borders, but they are a basic element of sovereign nation-states. If Christians are to contribute to the justice of international migration, the relative claims of refugees, asylees, undocumented migrants, and citizens must all be acknowledged. While welcoming the stranger is an important imperative, it does not provide a sufficient standard for allocating immigrant visas. Christians are called to love all persons, but this does not justify evading border regulations.